Blog containing my rituals and practices. I follow the Norse gods, but am neither a Wiccan nor a strict reconstructionist. My focus is on the spiritual, mystical, and magickal aspects of Heathenism and forms of practice that make Heathenism valid for the modern times, and present day needs, and as a path towards enlightenment and spiritual growth.

Only a very small amount of human DNA is human, meaning all animals and all living creatures on the Earth are also our ancestors. Even the space bacteria that started life on earth are our ancestors. All the animals that came before humans are our ancestors. Ancestors are also the humans of all ancient cultures who figured out how to survive as humans on the earth and then later on overcame that level, of being hunter-gatherers surviving to the level of developing complex human cultures once humans started to settle as farmers. All ancient humans are our ancestors as well as all ancient life. All of anyone’s line are the strongest lifeforms that overcome the struggle to survive long enough to reproduce. They represent the strength of uruz. They are the ones smart enough to have developed all human knowledge and culture we now have. All this is what it means to worship the ancestors, honoring that which they have given to us going back to the beginning of time from the space bacteria that formed life here to our direct family line to all that lays in between this. This heritage that the ancestors give us going all the way back to those space bacteria to what we have now, this is othala. Primal consciousness (fire) is fehu. The order of the runes represent the development and evolution of all life from the simplest to the most advanced. Life develops as a ladder taking steps higher and higher each laid down by those we came before.

Hail to the ancestors, the givers of prosperity, knowledge, culture, and the spiritual protectors of their offspring. Hail the Alfar and Disir!

Need:
• drinking horn
• mead (or beer or wine or even can use juice)
• spring water in small bowl
• fresh pine twig
• offering bowl
• candles (purple)
• incense (any mystical scent is ideal)
• wand (if you don’t have one you can use your fingers instead)
• Thor’s Ritual Hammer (optional, can use it for the Hammer Hallowings)
• Any representation of Odin
• Any representation of ancestors
• Any representation of any one is now dead that you admire, in particular those you admire for their wisdom.
• Halloween type decorations and anything related to death and the dead
• Any symbols for wisdom or knowledge
• Any symbols for the after-life

–

This ritual, as are all Heathen or northern rituals, is done while facing north, except where otherwise noted. The altar should be such that it is in front of you when you face north.

If you don’t know how to pronounce the runes see my webpage on how to pronounce them here.

–

Put spring water in small bowl. Trace 3 Laguz runes over it.:

“LAGUZ… LAGUZ… LAGUZ”

“From the Well of Wyrd does this water flow, and to the Well of Wyrd does it return”

–

Make Hammer Sign at item and then splash each ritual item with blessed water using the pine twig and for each item say:

“I bless this ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now trace Hammer Sign at person being blessed and/or self and splash them with water using twig.

“I bless ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Use twig to splash ritual space with water.

“I bless this space with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All stand in Elhaz position.

“Bi-Frost’s rainbow light shine down upon this space and myself so that I may form a portal between the worlds of Asgard and Midgard”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All face north and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the north hallow and ward this stead”

All turn east and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the east hallow and ward this stead”

All turn south and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the south hallow and ward this stead”

All turn west trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the west hallow and ward this stead”

All return to north and look up and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer above hallow and ward this stead”

All look below and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer below hallow and ward this stead”

–

Return to facing north and all stand in the Elhaz position and chant:

“Around me and within me Asgard and Midgard”

and move into the Dagaz position in the end.

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

(Highly recommended optional casting of the rune ring)

(face north and trace the rune shape in the air before you using your wand and loudly chant: “FEHU!”)

“This is the time of year that the veil between worlds is at it’s thinnest. In this time, we can travel more easily between the worlds of the living and the dead. This candle represents the world of the living, the incense’s smoke the veil, and the darkness beyond the world of the dead. It is in this state that our rite must take place, where Odin himself has traveled many times to seek knowledge and wisdom of those who have passed on.”

Circle the ritual space with the incense three times creating a “veil” with the smoke. Take a few silent deep breaths.

“Hail to my ancestors, both known and unknown. Those of my line going all the way back to the beginning, on up to most recent of times. Both men and women, alfar and disir, whom previously had a human form. Those whom I know, as well as those I do not. Those also whom are the ancestors of all humans living now. All humans that have made the journey of life before my time, and now reside in the realm beyond the living. Hail to the ancestors of all! Hail also to the ancestors of my family line! Hail to the ones that guide me. Hail also to the ones that protect me.”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

“Now is a time in which the rhythms of life turn inward, towards contemplation and trying to understand the deeper mysteries of life and towards the gathering of and seeking out of knowledge. It is through the ancestors and those humans that have come before us that we have all the knowledge which we have in human society. Those who have gone before us are the ones that have created the traditions and knowledge which we as humans rely upon to meet all of our needs, such as how to grow and create food, how to build protective shelters for living in, how to make clothing so that our human bodies are protected from the elements, how to survive the seasonal cycles in all different areas of the planet, what dangers to avoid and how to avoid them, and how to keep our human society functioning and going. We humans are the only animal that can not survive without knowledge. Our very lives depends on knowledge of how to do so many things. Over hundreds of thousands of years humans have increased their knowledge to the point that we live with the current advantages which we have now.”

“It is due to the experience and wisdom of our ancestors, both those within our own family line, and the ancestors of all human beings, that we can live as well as we do in the modern times. Those that have gone before us have recorded their wisdom for us in language, in stories, in poetry, in tools, in fashion, in objects of art, in oral knowledge, in traditions, in music and song, in mathematics, in schools of learning, in books, in the recording of historical events, in objects from the past, in plays, in movies, in TV shows, in videos, in blue-prints, in engineering plans, in computer programs, and even in the bones of the dead. All these things are the sum total of human heritage and the source of our knowledge that allows us to survive and thrive as a species. By turning to the past and studying the wisdom of our ancestors we tap into that knowledge. We must honor the dead and those who have gone before us for all that they have given to us. As well it is important that knowledge is passed to others freely, for otherwise the work of so many becomes lost. It has taken us so long to get to the point we are at now as a species, it is important we not be greedy with our knowledge or hoard it away from others, for this impedes human survival and progress.”

“Odin as god of wisdom is often traveling to the the realm of the dead to seek out the wisdom of the dead. We too must be like Odin and seek out the knowledge of our ancestors, the wisdom of the dead. At this time the focus of the seasons turns more towards this task of looking inward and to the past. Now is the time to look at all which you have done this season and look at what has worked for you and what has not. It is a time to ponder all lessons that are to be gained from what has been done this year, so that you may know better for next season how to increase the abundance of your life harvest. It may be a good time to record some notes regarding this, safely putting them away some place where they shall not be lost. Also this is a time when the veils between the realm of the living and the dead are at their thinnest, and thus a time in which the knowledge of the dead is more accessible. It is a good time to seek out the wise counsel of the ancestors and those that are now passed beyond the realm of the living. This is a good time to spend time reading books, and studying new things, and pursuing the gaining of knowledge in any form.”

“At this time ponder on what you have learned this year.”

Few silent deep breaths while pondering on this.
“Now consider what things you would like to do differently the next cycle”

Few silent deep breaths while pondering on this.

“Now think about those who have have passed into the after life. Now is the time to think about anyone you may know who has died”

Few silent deep breaths while you think about those who have passed on.

“Now think about any wisdom or knowledge they may have for you.”

Few silent deep breaths while you think about this.

“Now is the time to give thanks for all that our ancestors have given to us and to honor the wisdom of the dead.”

(Fill drinking horn with mead and hold it up)

“Hail to all humans that have come before me. Hail to those of my family line, as well as all people of the past of all human family lines. I make this offering to you in thanks for the wisdom you have given us by the lives you have lived in the past. May your knowledge continue and enhance the life of both myself and all other humans alive now and all humans to come for all of eternity! Hail to the ancestors of all people!”

(Drink half the mead and pour out the rest as an offering to the ancestors of all humans.)

“Now is the time to honor Odin, the god of knowledge. Odin tirelessly seeks out the knowledge which all humans have worked to create for all of time. He is the god that seeks to gain and preserve knowledge and give it to others for the benefit of human society and human progress. He is the god who labors tirelessly to establish things in such a way that humans can continue and survive even after the end of this current cycle when Ragnarok comes and all begins again anew. He is the god that has discovered the runes through a difficult process of spiritual initiation so that they may be of benefit for gods and humans alike. He is the god that has made so many sacrifices for the sake of gaining of knowledge. We owe him much for all these things!”

(Fill drinking horn and hold it up)

“Hail Odin, god of the runes. God of knowledge and wisdom. You Odin are the one that frequently travels the worlds seeking to know more. Please guide me Odin in learning more and in applying knowledge in ways that are helpful to me. Please Odin help me to gain a deeper level of connection with all people of the past so that my knowledge my increase. Hail Odin!”

(Drink half the mead and pour out the rest to Odin.)

“Also this is the time that we should remember the one that has been tasked with keeping the souls of the dead. The goddess that is both living and dead. Though she isn’t truly goddess, she has become in being tasked with the lands of the dead by Odin.”

(Fill drinking horn and hold it up)

“Hail Hel, daughter of Loki. She who holds the halls in Helheim and shares what she has with those who have passed on to her lands. Hel is mistress of the lands of the dead and keeps those that have died of old age or illness. Thus her lands are where most of our ancestors will reside. We honor her today as well in hopes that she allows those we love to rest in peace well beyond Ragnarok. She who is most beautiful and frightful in one visage being both dead and alive. We owe her much gratitude and respect in her tireless and thankless duty in tending those cold halls. Thank you, Hel for taking the task given and caring for the souls you’ve been tasked in keeping. May we all share in a feast again one day. Hail Hel!”

(Drink half the mead and pour out the rest to Hel.)

–

(Use the pine twig to splash a bit of the liquid in the offering bowl on yourself, on any others in the ritual with you, on your altar, on the ritual space, and in all general areas of your dwelling as well. Does not need to be much splashed around, just a little is fine. This helps to imbue more of the energies of the ritual on you, and others who may also in the ritual with you, and to your place.)

–

“Now my rite has ended. May all gathered here fare well on their return to their home places. And may the bonds of frith between us grow, gods, wights, and humans alike. Until we meet again.”

–
–

Pour out the offerings from the offering bowl outside:

“A gift for a gift”

Trace gebo at spot offerings were given to.

“GEBO!”

Pour out remaining blessed water outside.

“I pour the sacred water back to the Earth so it may find it’s way back to the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now at this point it is very important to ground your energies. This should always be done after every ritual. Not doing so can lead to problems in the long-run. Grounding is like shifting gears in a car, except it is the process of shifting brain states. During rituals you create a trance like brain state, which is desired for during rituals or for during any spiritual practices. But trance states are not good for doing everyday mundane things. You need to return your mind back to the normal state of consciousness after the ritual is finished. That is what grounding is.

The most simple and common method to ground is to visualize yourself as a tree and see roots growing into the ground from the base of your spine and going down into the earth. Sometimes rituals require industrial strength grounding as they can really create some intense energy. In that case you can try the following triple grounding method.:

First visualize your chakras. You picture in your mind closing first the top one and then seeing a sort of lid closing over it, then proceed with the net lower chakra and so on. You want to leave the bottom most chakra, the root chakra fully open as this is your connection to grounding. Don’t be concerned about having the others closed, the normal proper function of them is that they open and close as needed. Problems with being ungrounded happen when one of more of them are stuck open. Only the bottom one is to be left open at all times.

Next step is to picture a ball of pure white light above your head. Now let this white light slowly descent downward into your body and slowly move lower. As it descends it takes with it any unneeded, old, and negative energies. It is sort of sweeping downward through your energies taking all you no longer need with it. Once it reaches your feet let it move lower till it passes down through the floor. If you are on an upper close let it pass all the way to the ground. Let the earth take this energy to recycle it.

Now final step is to do the traditional grounding. Picture yourself as a tree. Visualize roots coming out of the base of your spine and going down into the Earth. Feel the calmness of a tree, the rooted solidness.

If after these three things you still feel hyper or spaced out you can either eat some food, or put a small amount of salt on your tongue. Another thing you can do is prostrate down to the ground, placing your head on the ground and stay like this for a few moments.

–

Feel free to copy and use this ritual so long as you acknowledge the source.

Need:
• drinking horn
• mead (or beer or wine or even can use juice)
• spring water in small bowl
• fresh pine twig
• offering bowl
• candles
• wand (if you don’t have one you can use your fingers instead)
• Thor’s Ritual Hammer (optional, can use it for the Hammer Hallowings)
• Green candle
• Any symbol for Freyr. Phallic symbols. Horse symbols.
• Baked goods, nuts, berries, and sweet fruit such as strawberries, grapes, cherries, blueberries. Freyr does prefer organic and natural foods if your budget allows.
• A list of all the spiritual seed tasks you had planted at Ostara (as many of them as you can remember). You can add items to the list that were not seed goals at Ostara but are goals anyways which you have been working on or have a shot of accomplishing within the next few months.

–

This ritual, as are all Heathen or northern rituals, is done while facing north, except where otherwise noted. The altar should be such that it is in front of you when you face north.

If you don’t know how to pronounce the runes see my webpage on how to pronounce them here.

–

Put spring water in small bowl. Trace 3 Laguz runes over it.:

“LAGUZ… LAGUZ… LAGUZ”

“From the Well of Wyrd does this water flow, and to the Well of Wyrd does it return”

–

Make Hammer Sign at item and then splash each ritual item with blessed water using the pine twig and for each item say:

“I bless this ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now trace Hammer Sign at person being blessed and/or self and splash them with water using twig.

“I bless ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Use twig to splash ritual space with water.

“I bless this space with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All stand in Elhaz position.

“Bi-Frost’s rainbow light shine down upon this space and myself so that I may form a portal between the worlds of Asgard and Midgard”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All face north and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the north hallow and ward this stead”

All turn east and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the east hallow and ward this stead”

All turn south and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the south hallow and ward this stead”

All turn west trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the west hallow and ward this stead”

All return to north and look up and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer above hallow and ward this stead”

All look below and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer below hallow and ward this stead”

–

Return to facing north and all stand in the Elhaz position and chant:

“Around me and within me Asgard and Midgard”

and move into the Dagaz position in the end.

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

(Highly recommended optional casting of the rune ring)

(face north and trace the rune shape in the air before you using your wand and loudly chant: “FEHU!”)

“Hail Freyr! Son of Njord. Brother of Freyja. Husband of Gerd. Trusted friend of Skirnir. Descendant of the Vanir. Harvest god and wealth-giver. King of Alfheim. Blot-god of the Swedes. Possessor of Skidbladnir, and the boar known as Gullinbursti. Beli’s slayer. Enemy of Surtr. Wielder of the stag-horn. Fruitful one. Sure giver. Father of the Yngling line. Lord of the Volsi!”

“Hail Freyr!”

–

“Now is the start of the harvest season. This is a time to work hard to bring forth all those things which you have been lending energies towards all this season. This is a time to honor Freyr, god of wealth and the harvest, so that your personal life harvest can be the fruitful one. Since most of us in the modern world are not farmers, harvest means for us the task of working on manifesting wishes and desires. Compared to other holidays this one is very straightforward. At this time we work on the tangible outward aspect of energies, working on manifesting and bringing into being that which started as inner energies in the spring.”

“Look at the list of all the wishes which you planted as seeds at Ostara. Now is the time to make those things happen, at least for those things in your life which have not already happened by now. You are to keep this list of tasks, at this time, some place where you will see it often in your day, so that you remain aware and focused towards the things you are working on manifesting.”

“At this time of the harvest I am working on:” (read your list of tasks)

“You have from now till the middle of October to work on your wishes for this season. Any of those wishes that have not manifested by then should be mulched as spiritual weeds. You can then try again for next season for any things that have not manifested by then. After that it is time to make things more simple in your life to focus on the inward turning energies of winter.”

–

“Freyr please help keep me focused on working on the things which I am trying to manifest in my life this season. Please Freyr lend me your potent energies for this purpose so that my life harvest this season may be a fruitful one.”

“Also please Freyr help to me keep away any distracting energies which may interfere with me accomplishing my harvest goals. Please help me to know what things may need to be extracted from my situation if there is anything which is acting to divert my harvest focus.”

“Hail Freyr!”

–

“Freyr now is the time to year to have a feast in your honor to give thanks for your fruitful energies.”

“This feast is for you Freyr! Hail Freyr!”

–

(Use the pine twig to splash a bit of the liquid in the offering bowl on yourself, on any others in the ritual with you, on your altar, on the ritual space, and in all general areas of your dwelling as well. Does not need to be much splashed around, just a little is fine. This helps to imbue more of the energies of the ritual on you, and others who may also in the ritual with you, and to your place.)

–

“Now my rite has ended. May all gathered here fare well on their return to their home places. And may the bonds of frith between us grow, gods, wights, and humans alike. Until we meet again.”

–
–

Pour out the offerings from the offering bowl outside:

“A gift for a gift”

Trace gebo at spot offerings were given to.

“GEBO!”

Pour out remaining blessed water outside.

“I pour the sacred water back to the Earth so it may find it’s way back to the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now at this point it is very important to ground your energies. This should always be done after every ritual. Not doing so can lead to problems in the long-run. Grounding is like shifting gears in a car, except it is the process of shifting brain states. During rituals you create a trance like brain state, which is desired for during rituals or for during any spiritual practices. But trance states are not good for doing everyday mundane things. You need to return your mind back to the normal state of consciousness after the ritual is finished. That is what grounding is.

The most simple and common method to ground is to visualize yourself as a tree and see roots growing into the ground from the base of your spine and going down into the earth. Sometimes rituals require industrial strength grounding as they can really create some intense energy. In that case you can try the following triple grounding method.:

First visualize your chakras. You picture in your mind closing first the top one and then seeing a sort of lid closing over it, then proceed with the net lower chakra and so on. You want to leave the bottom most chakra, the root chakra fully open as this is your connection to grounding. Don’t be concerned about having the others closed, the normal proper function of them is that they open and close as needed. Problems with being ungrounded happen when one of more of them are stuck open. Only the bottom one is to be left open at all times.

Next step is to picture a ball of pure white light above your head. Now let this white light slowly descent downward into your body and slowly move lower. As it descends it takes with it any unneeded, old, and negative energies. It is sort of sweeping downward through your energies taking all you no longer need with it. Once it reaches your feet let it move lower till it passes down through the floor. If you are on an upper close let it pass all the way to the ground. Let the earth take this energy to recycle it.

Now final step is to do the traditional grounding. Picture yourself as a tree. Visualize roots coming out of the base of your spine and going down into the Earth. Feel the calmness of a tree, the rooted solidness.

If after these three things you still feel hyper or spaced out you can either eat some food, or put a small amount of salt on your tongue. Another thing you can do is prostrate down to the ground, placing your head on the ground and stay like this for a few moments.

–

Feel free to copy and use this ritual so long as you acknowledge the source.

Need:
• drinking horn
• mead (or beer or wine or even can use juice)
• spring water in small bowl
• fresh pine twig
• offering bowl
• candles
• wand (if you don’t have one you can use your fingers instead)
• Thor’s Ritual Hammer (optional, can use it for the Hammer Hallowings)
• One yellow or gold candle
• One white candle
• Any symbols of Summer, solar symbols.

–

This ritual, as are all Heathen or northern rituals, is done while facing north, except where otherwise noted. The altar should be such that it is in front of you when you face north.

If you don’t know how to pronounce the runes see my webpage on how to pronounce them here.

–

Put spring water in small bowl. Trace 3 Laguz runes over it.:

“LAGUZ… LAGUZ… LAGUZ”

“From the Well of Wyrd does this water flow, and to the Well of Wyrd does it return”

–

Make Hammer Sign at item and then splash each ritual item with blessed water using the pine twig and for each item say:

“I bless this ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now trace Hammer Sign at person being blessed and/or self and splash them with water using twig.

“I bless ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Use twig to splash ritual space with water.

“I bless this space with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All stand in Elhaz position.

“Bi-Frost’s rainbow light shine down upon this space and myself so that I may form a portal between the worlds of Asgard and Midgard”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All face north and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the north hallow and ward this stead”

All turn east and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the east hallow and ward this stead”

All turn south and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the south hallow and ward this stead”

All turn west trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the west hallow and ward this stead”

All return to north and look up and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer above hallow and ward this stead”

All look below and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer below hallow and ward this stead”

–

Return to facing north and all stand in the Elhaz position and chant:

“Around me and within me Asgard and Midgard”

and move into the Dagaz position in the end.

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

(Highly recommended optional casting of the rune ring)

(face north and trace the rune shape in the air before you using your wand and loudly chant: “FEHU!”)

“Now is the time of Midsummer. This is a time for adventure and seeking conquest and victory within our life. Midsummer is also a time to honor the important alliances that you hold with others.”

“Late Spring and early Summer are the Norse times to fight battles and go raiding. Most of us in the modern world won’t be going into literal combat situations or going literally raiding, as happened during the Viking age. But we modern people have our own just as difficult battles we have to fight in our day to day life. Common modern forms of battle are: battles against your own negative traits or bad habits, battles to effect greater spiritual growth and awareness, battles to improve our lives in any way, battles against people in our lives who abuse us or cause us harm, battles to stand up for some cause we believe in, battles to improve the lives and well-being of those close to us, battles to achieve success in our careers, fighting for a better world, etc. All these types of battles are equally as worthy as the battles and raids which the Vikings fought, and are just as filled with their own forms of danger and peril. All forms of worthy battle which we fight are a way in which the gods/goddesses test us to see our measure of spiritual strength and bravery. By fighting whatever worthy battles we must in our lives without backing down and doing the best we can in them, we increase our spiritual might and personal luck. Most forms of modern battles are more so what can be considered forms of psychic or spiritual battles. Being a spiritual warrior is just as impressive to the gods/goddesses as being a literal one. If your life has been filled with strife and challenge lately during the late spring and early summer know that this is part of being in tune with the seasonal cycles and this time shall eventually pass. When fighting a lot of battles our energies can after awhile become drained and run down. Try to call upon the power of the sun, the goddess Sunna, as a source to recharge your psychic and emotional batteries after many long fought battles.”

–

(Hold drinking how and fill it with drink)

“Hail to Sunna! Goddess of the sun! Goddess of the energies which charge all of life with vitality! Through your vital strength, we gain the power to achieve victory! Please oh bright shinning goddess charge my energies with your might and power! Hail Sunna!”

(Picture in your mind’s eye energy from the sun coming down to you and filling your aura, making it stronger and more powerful.)

(Chant and trace sowilo in the air three times:)

“SOWILO… SOWILO… SOWILO”

(Drink half, pour out rest to offering bowl or ground)

–

“Anger is a useful and important emotion since it is related to defending against attack, and is an emotion needed for self protection. Anger only gets bad when it is used in a personal way. Personalized anger is anger against a certain person, which is very negative. Anger used in a impersonal sense, as controlled anger where you use the anger feelings to empower your ability to defend your rights and to protect yourself and others, is the proper positive use of anger. ”

“In modern day times there aren’t many outlets for anger. In older times of course there were plenty of outlets for it since men had to fight to protect. Since men are the protectors they do tend to more directly feel their anger emotions. Women often but not always tend to feel their anger in more indirect ways. Or more commonly, many women have trouble directly acknowledging when they are angry. The strongest emotion for men is anger. The strongest emotion for women is love. Men are the warriors so they need to have anger as a strong emotion for to strengthen this role for them. In Pagan societies such as the Vikings, the society was structured in a way to help keep anger more as the impersonal healthy kind and such societies were even structured in ways to give men healthy outlets for anger.”

“One of the most positive ways to release anger and act upon the warrior spirit in modern society is through sports. Summer is the best time for doing sports. Sports help to create frith since they help people feel more positive and release tension and anger. Group sports can be a powerful tool of troth-making.”

“Another way to release or vent anger is through sex. Sex is a very powerful way to turn anger onto frith and love. It is very sacred to have sex at the Midsummer bonfire.”

“Women as the nurturers and pleasure and care givers have love as their strongest emotion. Since the strongest emotion for women is love, women are the frith-makers and they hold a sacred duty in northern culture as guardians of the frith. Frith is the glue that holds together those who hold troth for each other. Without frith there can be no troth. Keeping troth with those you cannot have any frith with is both dishonorable and dishonest. In order for there to be frith with someone you must hold feelings of respect and trust. No social organization, whether it be one related to Heathenism or anything at all, can survive if it does not strictly enforce members keeping frith between each other. The foundation of troth is frith. Troth is the very basis of Heathenism. Any Heathen that has not learned to be respectful of other people is one that is not able to honor frith and thus shall fail completely at holding troth with others. Since the basis of Heathenism is troth, such a Heathen shall fail as a Heathen. The gods and goddesses only welcome those to their hall that would be able to hold frith with all those who reside in their hall. The whole point of being Heathen is to hold troth for one or more of the northern gods or goddesses and work towards being welcomed to their hall in the after-life, thus learning how to respect others and honor frith is one of the greatest lessons any Heathen can learn.”

“Now at this time of the season, Midsummer, is the time to acknowledge all bonds of troth which we hold. Troth is the very point of Heathenism. Heathenism is simply put the practice of holding troth for one or more of the northern gods/goddesses. In all things we do in our life we must act in ways that honor this troth we hold. By taking troth with any god or goddess we are agreeing to hold their ways holy and honor what they stand for. Take some moments now to ponder on all the gods and goddesses which you hold troth with and all the things which are sacred to them.”

(Feel free to change this next part as needed)

“I _______ (state your name) hold troth with the Vanir and Aesir, with the ways of the Vanir coming first for me. _______ (patron deity name) is my patron and thus I hold the greatest troth of all for him/her. I agree to hold sacred all the things which are holy to the Vanir and Aesir and most of all that which is sacred to my patron ________ (patron deity name).”

–

(This next section is optional. If you prefer you can change this to whatever other values you happen to follow. In no way are the Vanic Virtues, or the Nine Noble Virtues, or any other codified system of values, a requirement to be followed to be Heathen. It is up to the individual Heathen to determine what values system they shall follow, so long as they uphold the basics such as honesty, troth, and always keeping oaths to the best of their ability. But once an individual has chosen a value system to follow they must follow it faithfully to the best of their ability. What matters most is to never agree to follow any value system you don’t deeply feel in your heart is right for you. Part of troth is being true to yourself and your true will.)

“To honor the troth I hold, these are the values I have agreed to uphold in my life to the best of my ability.:”

“The Vanic Virtues ”

“Beauty ”
“The pursuit of beauty and elegance in thought, form and speech. ”

“Courage/Passion ”
“Zeal, vigor; the strength and courage that comes from a life worth living. ”

“Land-rightness ”
“The recognition of nature and the environment as worthy of respect, care and reverence. ”

“Openness ”
“The quality of being receptive to the world around one, non-judgmental and open. ”

“Wildness/Ecstasy ”
“Music and dance; the nurturing of inner wildness and childlike being, being like the “fey” ”

“Love”
“The all-encompassing force; love for family, for kin, for humanity, for all beings.”

“Frith ”
“The peace and goodwill between people bound together; loyalty and the keeping of one’s word. ”

“Faith/Piety ”
“The trust that the Gods exist and are worthy of our worship, and Their ways worth following. ”

“Giving ”
“The binding of two parties into one common bond, generosity and hospitality. ”

“Joy ”
“Wonder and innocence, the recognition that life is worth living, and worth living well. ”

“Brotherhood ”
“The recognition that we – humans, animals, plants, spirits – are all part of the grander scheme of life, and we share a common heritage, as children of the Earth.”

–

(This part is not optional)

(Hold drinking how and fill it with drink)

“Hail to the Vanir! Hail to the Aesir! Hail to _______ (patron deity name), I make this toast to you in honor of the troth I hold for you all! Hail!”

(Drink half, pour out rest to offering bowl or ground)

–

Use the pine twig to splash a bit of the liquid in the offering bowl on yourself, on any others in the ritual with you, on your altar, on the ritual space, and in all general areas of your dwelling as well. Does not need to be much splashed around, just a little is fine. This helps to imbue more of the energies of the ritual on you, and others who may also in the ritual with you, and to your place.

–

“Now my rite has ended. May all gathered here fare well on their return to their home places. And may the bonds of frith between us grow, gods, wights, and humans alike. Until we meet again.”

–
–

Pour out the offerings from the offering bowl outside:

“A gift for a gift”

Trace gebo at spot offerings were given to.

“GEBO!”

Pour out remaining blessed water outside.

“I pour the sacred water back to the Earth so it may find it’s way back to the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now at this point it is very important to ground your energies. This should always be done after every ritual. Not doing so can lead to problems in the long-run. Grounding is like shifting gears in a car, except it is the process of shifting brain states. During rituals you create a trance like brain state, which is desired for during rituals or for during any spiritual practices. But trance states are not good for doing everyday mundane things. You need to return your mind back to the normal state of consciousness after the ritual is finished. That is what grounding is.

The most simple and common method to ground is to visualize yourself as a tree and see roots growing into the ground from the base of your spine and going down into the earth. Sometimes rituals require industrial strength grounding as they can really create some intense energy. In that case you can try the following triple grounding method.:

First visualize your chakras. You picture in your mind closing first the top one and then seeing a sort of lid closing over it, then proceed with the net lower chakra and so on. You want to leave the bottom most chakra, the root chakra fully open as this is your connection to grounding. Don’t be concerned about having the others closed, the normal proper function of them is that they open and close as needed. Problems with being ungrounded happen when one of more of them are stuck open. Only the bottom one is to be left open at all times.

Next step is to picture a ball of pure white light above your head. Now let this white light slowly descent downward into your body and slowly move lower. As it descends it takes with it any unneeded, old, and negative energies. It is sort of sweeping downward through your energies taking all you no longer need with it. Once it reaches your feet let it move lower till it passes down through the floor. If you are on an upper close let it pass all the way to the ground. Let the earth take this energy to recycle it.

Now final step is to do the traditional grounding. Picture yourself as a tree. Visualize roots coming out of the base of your spine and going down into the Earth. Feel the calmness of a tree, the rooted solidness.

If after these three things you still feel hyper or spaced out you can either eat some food, or put a small amount of salt on your tongue. Another thing you can do is prostrate down to the ground, placing your head on the ground and stay like this for a few moments.

–

Feel free to copy and use this ritual so long as you acknowledge the source.

Need:
• drinking horn
• mead (or beer or wine or even can use juice)
• spring water in small bowl
• fresh pine twig
• offering bowl
• candles
• wand (if you don’t have one you can use your fingers instead)
• Thor’s Ritual Hammer (optional, can use it for the Hammer Hallowings)
• One yellow or gold candle
• One white candle
• Any symbols of Summer, solar symbols.

–

This ritual, as are all Heathen or northern rituals, is done while facing north, except where otherwise noted. The altar should be such that it is in front of you when you face north.

If you don’t know how to pronounce the runes see my webpage on how to pronounce them here.

–

Put spring water in small bowl. Trace 3 Laguz runes over it.:

“LAGUZ… LAGUZ… LAGUZ”

“From the Well of Wyrd does this water flow, and to the Well of Wyrd does it return”

–

Make Hammer Sign at item and then splash each ritual item with blessed water using the pine twig and for each item say:

“I bless this ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now trace Hammer Sign at person being blessed and/or self and splash them with water using twig.

“I bless ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Use twig to splash ritual space with water.

“I bless this space with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All stand in Elhaz position.

“Bi-Frost’s rainbow light shine down upon this space and myself so that I may form a portal between the worlds of Asgard and Midgard”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All face north and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the north hallow and ward this stead”

All turn east and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the east hallow and ward this stead”

All turn south and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the south hallow and ward this stead”

All turn west trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the west hallow and ward this stead”

All return to north and look up and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer above hallow and ward this stead”

All look below and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer below hallow and ward this stead”

–

Return to facing north and all stand in the Elhaz position and chant:

“Around me and within me Asgard and Midgard”

and move into the Dagaz position in the end.

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

(Highly recommended optional casting of the rune ring)

(face north and trace the rune shape in the air before you using your wand and loudly chant: “FEHU!”)

“Now is the time of Midsummer. This is a time for adventure and seeking conquest and victory within our life. Midsummer is also a time to honor the important alliances that you hold with others.”

“Late Spring and early Summer are the Norse times to fight battles and go raiding. Most of us in the modern world won’t be going into literal combat situations or going literally raiding, as happened during the Viking age. But we modern people have our own just as difficult battles we have to fight in our day to day life. Common modern forms of battle are: battles against your own negative traits or bad habits, battles to effect greater spiritual growth and awareness, battles to improve our lives in any way, battles against people in our lives who abuse us or cause us harm, battles to stand up for some cause we believe in, battles to improve the lives and well-being of those close to us, battles to achieve success in our careers, fighting for a better world, etc. All these types of battles are equally as worthy as the battles and raids which the Vikings fought, and are just as filled with their own forms of danger and peril. All forms of worthy battle which we fight are a way in which the gods/goddesses test us to see our measure of spiritual strength and bravery. By fighting whatever worthy battles we must in our lives without backing down and doing the best we can in them, we increase our spiritual might and personal luck. Most forms of modern battles are more so what can be considered forms of psychic or spiritual battles. Being a spiritual warrior is just as impressive to the gods/goddesses as being a literal one. If your life has been filled with strife and challenge lately during the late spring and early summer know that this is part of being in tune with the seasonal cycles and this time shall eventually pass. When fighting a lot of battles our energies can after awhile become drained and run down. Try to call upon the power of the sun, the goddess Sunna, as a source to recharge your psychic and emotional batteries after many long fought battles.”

–

(Hold drinking how and fill it with drink)

“Hail to Sunna! Goddess of the sun! Goddess of the energies which charge all of life with vitality! Through your vital strength, we gain the power to achieve victory! Please oh bright shinning goddess charge my energies with your might and power! Hail Sunna!”

(Picture in your mind’s eye energy from the sun coming down to you and filling your aura, making it stronger and more powerful.)

(Chant and trace sowilo in the air three times:)

“SOWILO… SOWILO… SOWILO”

(Drink half, pour out rest to offering bowl or ground)

–

“Anger is a useful and important emotion since it is related to defending against attack, and is an emotion needed for self protection. Anger only gets bad when it is used in a personal way. Personalized anger is anger against a certain person, which is very negative. Anger used in a impersonal sense, as controlled anger where you use the anger feelings to empower your ability to defend your rights and to protect yourself and others, is the proper positive use of anger. ”

“In modern day times there aren’t many outlets for anger. In older times of course there were plenty of outlets for it since men had to fight to protect. Since men are the protectors they do tend to more directly feel their anger emotions. Women often but not always tend to feel their anger in more indirect ways. Or more commonly, many women have trouble directly acknowledging when they are angry. The strongest emotion for men is anger. The strongest emotion for women is love. Men are the warriors so they need to have anger as a strong emotion for to strengthen this role for them. In Pagan societies such as the Vikings, the society was structured in a way to help keep anger more as the impersonal healthy kind and such societies were even structured in ways to give men healthy outlets for anger.”

“One of the most positive ways to release anger and act upon the warrior spirit in modern society is through sports. Summer is the best time for doing sports. Sports help to create frith since they help people feel more positive and release tension and anger. Group sports can be a powerful tool of troth-making.”

“Another way to release or vent anger is through sex. Sex is a very powerful way to turn anger onto frith and love. It is very sacred to have sex at the Midsummer bonfire.”

“Women as the nurturers and pleasure and care givers have love as their strongest emotion. Since the strongest emotion for women is love, women are the frith-makers and they hold a sacred duty in northern culture as guardians of the frith. Frith is the glue that holds together those who hold troth for each other. Without frith there can be no troth. Keeping troth with those you cannot have any frith with is both dishonorable and dishonest. In order for there to be frith with someone you must hold feelings of respect and trust. No social organization, whether it be one related to Heathenism or anything at all, can survive if it does not strictly enforce members keeping frith between each other. The foundation of troth is frith. Troth is the very basis of Heathenism. Any Heathen that has not learned to be respectful of other people is one that is not able to honor frith and thus shall fail completely at holding troth with others. Since the basis of Heathenism is troth, such a Heathen shall fail as a Heathen. The gods and goddesses only welcome those to their hall that would be able to hold frith with all those who reside in their hall. The whole point of being Heathen is to hold troth for one or more of the northern gods or goddesses and work towards being welcomed to their hall in the after-life, thus learning how to respect others and honor frith is one of the greatest lessons any Heathen can learn.”

“Now at this time of the season, Midsummer, is the time to acknowledge all bonds of troth which we hold. Troth is the very point of Heathenism. Heathenism is simply put the practice of holding troth for one or more of the northern gods/goddesses. In all things we do in our life we must act in ways that honor this troth we hold. By taking troth with any god or goddess we are agreeing to hold their ways holy and honor what they stand for. Take some moments now to ponder on all the gods and goddesses which you hold troth with and all the things which are sacred to them.”

(Feel free to change this next part as needed)

“I _______ (state your name) hold troth with the Aesir and Vanir. _______ (patron deity name) is my patron and thus I hold the greatest troth of all for him/her. I agree to hold sacred all the things which are holy to the Aesir and Vanir and most of all that which is sacred to my patron ________ (patron deity name).”

–

(This next section is optional. If you prefer you can change these to suit your version of the Nine Noble Virtues or change them to whatever other values you happen to follow. In no way are the Nine Noble Virtues in any particular form or at all a requirement to be followed to be Asatru or Heathen. It is up to the individual Heathen to determine what values system they shall follow, so long as they uphold the basics such as honesty, troth, and always keeping oaths to the best of their ability. But once an individual has chosen a value system to follow they must follow it faithfully to the best of their ability. What matters most is to never agree to follow any value system you don’t deeply feel in your heart is right for you. Part of troth is being true to yourself and your true will.)

“To honor the troth I hold, these are the values I have agreed to uphold in my life to the best of my ability.:”

“Courage ”

“Truth ”

“Honor ”

“Troth”

“Discipline ”

“Friendliness ”

“Industriousness”

“Self-Reliance ”

“Perseverance”

–

(This part is not optional)

(Hold drinking how and fill it with drink)

“Hail to the Aesir! Hail to the Vanir! Hail to _______ (patron deity name), I make this toast to you in honor of the troth I hold for you all! Hail!”

(Drink half, pour out rest to offering bowl or ground)

–

Use the pine twig to splash a bit of the liquid in the offering bowl on yourself, on any others in the ritual with you, on your altar, on the ritual space, and in all general areas of your dwelling as well. Does not need to be much splashed around, just a little is fine. This helps to imbue more of the energies of the ritual on you, and others who may also in the ritual with you, and to your place.

–

“Now my rite has ended. May all gathered here fare well on their return to their home places. And may the bonds of frith between us grow, gods, wights, and humans alike. Until we meet again.”

–
–

Pour out the offerings from the offering bowl outside:

“A gift for a gift”

Trace gebo at spot offerings were given to.

“GEBO!”

Pour out remaining blessed water outside.

“I pour the sacred water back to the Earth so it may find it’s way back to the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now at this point it is very important to ground your energies. This should always be done after every ritual. Not doing so can lead to problems in the long-run. Grounding is like shifting gears in a car, except it is the process of shifting brain states. During rituals you create a trance like brain state, which is desired for during rituals or for during any spiritual practices. But trance states are not good for doing everyday mundane things. You need to return your mind back to the normal state of consciousness after the ritual is finished. That is what grounding is.

The most simple and common method to ground is to visualize yourself as a tree and see roots growing into the ground from the base of your spine and going down into the earth. Sometimes rituals require industrial strength grounding as they can really create some intense energy. In that case you can try the following triple grounding method.:

First visualize your chakras. You picture in your mind closing first the top one and then seeing a sort of lid closing over it, then proceed with the net lower chakra and so on. You want to leave the bottom most chakra, the root chakra fully open as this is your connection to grounding. Don’t be concerned about having the others closed, the normal proper function of them is that they open and close as needed. Problems with being ungrounded happen when one of more of them are stuck open. Only the bottom one is to be left open at all times.

Next step is to picture a ball of pure white light above your head. Now let this white light slowly descent downward into your body and slowly move lower. As it descends it takes with it any unneeded, old, and negative energies. It is sort of sweeping downward through your energies taking all you no longer need with it. Once it reaches your feet let it move lower till it passes down through the floor. If you are on an upper close let it pass all the way to the ground. Let the earth take this energy to recycle it.

Now final step is to do the traditional grounding. Picture yourself as a tree. Visualize roots coming out of the base of your spine and going down into the Earth. Feel the calmness of a tree, the rooted solidness.

If after these three things you still feel hyper or spaced out you can either eat some food, or put a small amount of salt on your tongue. Another thing you can do is prostrate down to the ground, placing your head on the ground and stay like this for a few moments.

–

Feel free to copy and use this ritual so long as you acknowledge the source.

Need:
• drinking horn
• mead (or beer or wine or even can use juice)
• spring water in small bowl
• fresh pine twig
• offering bowl
• candles
• wand (if you don’t have one you can use your fingers instead)
• Thor’s Ritual Hammer (optional, can use it for the Hammer Hallowings)
• One yellow or gold candle
• One white candle
• Any symbols of Summer, solar symbols.

–

This ritual, as are all Heathen or northern rituals, is done while facing north, except where otherwise noted. The altar should be such that it is in front of you when you face north.

If you don’t know how to pronounce the runes see my webpage on how to pronounce them here.

–

Put spring water in small bowl. Trace 3 Laguz runes over it.:

“LAGUZ… LAGUZ… LAGUZ”

“From the Well of Wyrd does this water flow, and to the Well of Wyrd does it return”

–

Make Hammer Sign at item and then splash each ritual item with blessed water using the pine twig and for each item say:

“I bless this ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now trace Hammer Sign at person being blessed and/or self and splash them with water using twig.

“I bless ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Use twig to splash ritual space with water.

“I bless this space with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All stand in Elhaz position.

“Bi-Frost’s rainbow light shine down upon this space and myself so that I may form a portal between the worlds of Asgard and Midgard”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All face north and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the north hallow and ward this stead”

All turn east and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the east hallow and ward this stead”

All turn south and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the south hallow and ward this stead”

All turn west trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the west hallow and ward this stead”

All return to north and look up and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer above hallow and ward this stead”

All look below and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer below hallow and ward this stead”

–

Return to facing north and all stand in the Elhaz position and chant:

“Around me and within me Asgard and Midgard”

and move into the Dagaz position in the end.

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

(Highly recommended optional casting of the rune ring)

(face north and trace the rune shape in the air before you using your wand and loudly chant: “FEHU!”)

“Now is the time of Midsummer. This is a time for adventure and seeking conquest and victory within our life. Midsummer is also a time to honor the important alliances that you hold with others.”

“Late Spring and early Summer are the Norse times to fight battles and go raiding. Most of us in the modern world won’t be going into literal combat situations or going literally raiding, as happened during the Viking age. But we modern people have our own just as difficult battles we have to fight in our day to day life. Common modern forms of battle are: battles against your own negative traits or bad habits, battles to effect greater spiritual growth and awareness, battles to improve our lives in any way, battles against people in our lives who abuse us or cause us harm, battles to stand up for some cause we believe in, battles to improve the lives and well-being of those close to us, battles to achieve success in our careers, fighting for a better world, etc. All these types of battles are equally as worthy as the battles and raids which the Vikings fought, and are just as filled with their own forms of danger and peril. All forms of worthy battle which we fight are a way in which the gods/goddesses test us to see our measure of spiritual strength and bravery. By fighting whatever worthy battles we must in our lives without backing down and doing the best we can in them, we increase our spiritual might and personal luck. Most forms of modern battles are more so what can be considered forms of psychic or spiritual battles. Being a spiritual warrior is just as impressive to the gods/goddesses as being a literal one. If your life has been filled with strife and challenge lately during the late spring and early summer know that this is part of being in tune with the seasonal cycles and this time shall eventually pass. When fighting a lot of battles our energies can after awhile become drained and run down. Try to call upon the power of the sun, the goddess Sunna, as a source to recharge your psychic and emotional batteries after many long fought battles.”

–

(Hold drinking how and fill it with drink)

“Hail to Sunna! Goddess of the sun! Goddess of the energies which charge all of life with vitality! Through your vital strength, we gain the power to achieve victory! Please oh bright shinning goddess charge my energies with your might and power! Hail Sunna!”

(Picture in your mind’s eye energy from the sun coming down to you and filling your aura, making it stronger and more powerful.)

(Chant and trace sowilo in the air three times:)

“SOWILO… SOWILO… SOWILO”

(Drink half, pour out rest to offering bowl or ground)

–

“Anger is a useful and important emotion since it is related to defending against attack, and is an emotion needed for self protection. Anger only gets bad when it is used in a personal way. Personalized anger is anger against a certain person, which is very negative. Anger used in a impersonal sense, as controlled anger where you use the anger feelings to empower your ability to defend your rights and to protect yourself and others, is the proper positive use of anger. ”

“In modern day times there aren’t many outlets for anger. In older times of course there were plenty of outlets for it since men had to fight to protect. Since men are the protectors they do tend to more directly feel their anger emotions. Women often but not always tend to feel their anger in more indirect ways. Or more commonly, many women have trouble directly acknowledging when they are angry. The strongest emotion for men is anger. The strongest emotion for women is love. Men are the warriors so they need to have anger as a strong emotion for to strengthen this role for them. In Pagan societies such as the Vikings, the society was structured in a way to help keep anger more as the impersonal healthy kind and such societies were even structured in ways to give men healthy outlets for anger.”

“One of the most positive ways to release anger and act upon the warrior spirit in modern society is through sports. Summer is the best time for doing sports. Sports help to create frith since they help people feel more positive and release tension and anger. Group sports can be a powerful tool of troth-making.”

“Another way to release or vent anger is through sex. Sex is a very powerful way to turn anger onto frith and love. It is very sacred to have sex at the Midsummer bonfire.”

“Women as the nurturers and pleasure and care givers have love as their strongest emotion. Since the strongest emotion for women is love, women are the frith-makers and they hold a sacred duty in northern culture as guardians of the frith. Frith is the glue that holds together those who hold troth for each other. Without frith there can be no troth. Keeping troth with those you cannot have any frith with is both dishonorable and dishonest. In order for there to be frith with someone you must hold feelings of respect and trust. No social organization, whether it be one related to Heathenism or anything at all, can survive if it does not strictly enforce members keeping frith between each other. The foundation of troth is frith. Troth is the very basis of Heathenism. Any Heathen that has not learned to be respectful of other people is one that is not able to honor frith and thus shall fail completely at holding troth with others. Since the basis of Heathenism is troth, such a Heathen shall fail as a Heathen. The gods and goddesses only welcome those to their hall that would be able to hold frith with all those who reside in their hall. The whole point of being Heathen is to hold troth for one or more of the northern gods or goddesses and work towards being welcomed to their hall in the after-life, thus learning how to respect others and honor frith is one of the greatest lessons any Heathen can learn.”

“Now at this time of the season, Midsummer, is the time to acknowledge all bonds of troth which we hold. Troth is the very point of Heathenism. Heathenism is simply put the practice of holding troth for one or more of the northern gods/goddesses. In all things we do in our life we must act in ways that honor this troth we hold. By taking troth with any god or goddess we are agreeing to hold their ways holy and honor what they stand for. Take some moments now to ponder on all the gods and goddesses which you hold troth with and all the things which are sacred to them.”

(Feel free to change this next part as needed)

“I _______ (state your name) hold troth with the Vanir and Aesir. _______ (patron deity name) is my patron and thus I hold the greatest troth of all for him/her. I agree to hold sacred all the things which are holy to the Aesir and Vanir and most of all that which is sacred to my patron ________ (patron deity name).”

–

(This next section is optional. If you prefer you can change this to whatever other values you happen to follow. In no way are the Nine Noble Virtues, the Vanic Virtues, or the, or any other codified system of values, a requirement to be followed to be Heathen. It is up to the individual Heathen to determine what values system they shall follow, so long as they uphold the basics such as honesty, troth, and always keeping oaths to the best of their ability. But once an individual has chosen a value system to follow they must follow it faithfully to the best of their ability. What matters most is to never agree to follow any value system you don’t deeply feel in your heart is right for you. Part of troth is being true to yourself and your true will.)

(Here state what values you uphold and swear to follow in your life.)

–

(This part is not optional)

(Hold drinking how and fill it with drink)

“Hail to the Vanir! Hail to the Aesir! Hail to _______ (patron deity name), I make this toast to you in honor of the troth I hold for you all! Hail!”

(Drink half, pour out rest to offering bowl or ground)

–

Use the pine twig to splash a bit of the liquid in the offering bowl on yourself, on any others in the ritual with you, on your altar, on the ritual space, and in all general areas of your dwelling as well. Does not need to be much splashed around, just a little is fine. This helps to imbue more of the energies of the ritual on you, and others who may also in the ritual with you, and to your place.

–

“Now my rite has ended. May all gathered here fare well on their return to their home places. And may the bonds of frith between us grow, gods, wights, and humans alike. Until we meet again.”

–
–

Pour out the offerings from the offering bowl outside:

“A gift for a gift”

Trace gebo at spot offerings were given to.

“GEBO!”

Pour out remaining blessed water outside.

“I pour the sacred water back to the Earth so it may find it’s way back to the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now at this point it is very important to ground your energies. This should always be done after every ritual. Not doing so can lead to problems in the long-run. Grounding is like shifting gears in a car, except it is the process of shifting brain states. During rituals you create a trance like brain state, which is desired for during rituals or for during any spiritual practices. But trance states are not good for doing everyday mundane things. You need to return your mind back to the normal state of consciousness after the ritual is finished. That is what grounding is.

The most simple and common method to ground is to visualize yourself as a tree and see roots growing into the ground from the base of your spine and going down into the earth. Sometimes rituals require industrial strength grounding as they can really create some intense energy. In that case you can try the following triple grounding method.:

First visualize your chakras. You picture in your mind closing first the top one and then seeing a sort of lid closing over it, then proceed with the net lower chakra and so on. You want to leave the bottom most chakra, the root chakra fully open as this is your connection to grounding. Don’t be concerned about having the others closed, the normal proper function of them is that they open and close as needed. Problems with being ungrounded happen when one of more of them are stuck open. Only the bottom one is to be left open at all times.

Next step is to picture a ball of pure white light above your head. Now let this white light slowly descent downward into your body and slowly move lower. As it descends it takes with it any unneeded, old, and negative energies. It is sort of sweeping downward through your energies taking all you no longer need with it. Once it reaches your feet let it move lower till it passes down through the floor. If you are on an upper close let it pass all the way to the ground. Let the earth take this energy to recycle it.

Now final step is to do the traditional grounding. Picture yourself as a tree. Visualize roots coming out of the base of your spine and going down into the Earth. Feel the calmness of a tree, the rooted solidness.

If after these three things you still feel hyper or spaced out you can either eat some food, or put a small amount of salt on your tongue. Another thing you can do is prostrate down to the ground, placing your head on the ground and stay like this for a few moments.

–

Feel free to copy and use this ritual so long as you acknowledge the source.

In Neo-Paganism this three-fold aspect is seen with there being Archetypal-Paganism, Polytheistic-Paganism, and Humanistic-Paganism. Neo-Paganism is a newer major world religion and as such it is still undergoing the process of development as a major religion. Thus is is still going through the grow process that any new religion does.

The first form of Neo-Paganism to form was Archetypal-Paganism. Your stereotypical Wiccan (but not all Wiccans) is an Archetypal-Pagan. They see the gods and goddesses either as different (and interchangeable) expressions of one divine energy, or all gods and goddesses to them are the expression of one set of Great Goddess and Great God (Dualtheism). Archetypal-Paganism is based on the philosophical idea of syncretism. Wicca itself was a religion created through syncretism. Though most but not all Wiccans are Archtypal-Pagans, not all Archtypal-Pagans are Wiccans. Wiccans would be the biggest group that are Archtypal-Pagans.

The next expression of Neo-Paganism is Polytheistic-Paganism. Polytheistic-Pagans see the gods and goddess as all unique and distinct beings and not interchangeable for one another. Though some of them do acknowledge that some gods or goddesses may appear in more than one culture with nearly almost exact similar forms and traits but with different names. Generally Polytheistic-Pagans place a strong focus on devotional practices and worship of the particular gods and goddesses which they happen to focus on. Polytheistic-Pagans are almost always very focused on a particular cultural tradition. Some Polytheistic-Pagans are very focused on strict historical reconstruction of ancient Pagan traditions, while others try to focus on modern ways to relate to the gods/goddesses, but many are a mix between both these extremes. The stereotypical Heathen is Polytheistic-Pagan. Originally Heathenism was separate from the Neo-Pagan scene due to early on Wiccan viewpoints dominating the Neo-Pagan scene, but this has changed and more and more Heathen ideas have had an impact on Neo-Paganism. More Heathens, or even Pagans strongly influenced by Heathenism, are seen taking part in the Neo-Pagan scene these days. Just as not all Archtypal-Pagans are Wiccans, not all Polytheistic-Pagans are Heathens, though Heathenism does represent the biggest pool of Polytheistic-Pagans at this time. There has been a huge growth in non-Heathen forms of Polytheistic-Paganism in recent years.

The third and by far newest form of Neo-Paganism is the Humanistic-Pagan. They are a very recent development and as such there has been some growing pains for this form of Paganism in it being accepted into the Neo-Pagan scene. Other terms that seem to be currently used for Humanist-Pagans are Atheist-Pagans, and Naturalistic-Pagans. Generally Humanist-Pagans tend to not believe in or focus on the supernatural or divine aspect of things. They tend to see the gods/goddesses and mythologies in terms of archetypal expressions of psychological or philosophical concepts. In many ways the ideas established by Carl Jung likely are the roots of this form of Paganism. Humanistic-Pagans believe strongly in science and having a more tangible connection to things. Their approach to Paganism is more cultural. Many of them may not wish to see Neo-Paganism as a religion but more as a form of cultural identity. They put great focus on the values expressed within Neo-Paganism such as respect for the environment and a focus on self awareness. Omnia is an example of a music band that seems to represent the ideas within Humanistic-Paganism.

It is important as Pagans for us to understand and respect the views of all those who fall under the umbrella of the religion of Neo-Paganism. At the same time we need to acknowledge that there are these distinct forms and these differences can at times lead to issues of difficulty since each distinct style leads to a different viewpoint on what the reasons are for being Pagan. We must guard against trying to enforce the approach of our particular approach of Neo-Paganism on to people of the other forms. We must acknowledge that all ways are equally as valid and all people have the religious and spiritual and cultural freedom to pursue anything that is not harmful to others. All these forms of Paganism are helpful in their own ways to those who practice them. All these forms of Paganism help to enrich the lives of their devotes. As Neo-Pagans we need to stand unified at least on the legal and cultural front so as to make sure our rights are not stomped upon. On the spiritual front we must understand our differences and make room for us to divide into our particular more focused groups as needed.

Late Spring and early Summer are the Norse times to fight battles and go raiding. Most of us in the modern world won’t be going into literal combat situations or going literally raiding, as happened during the Viking age. But we modern people have our own just as difficult battles we have to fight in our day to day life. Common modern forms of battle are battles against your own negative traits or bad habits, battles to effect greater spiritual growth and awareness, battles to improve our lives in any way, battles against people in our lives who abuse us or cause us harm, battles to stand up for some cause we believe in, battles to improve the lives and well-being of those close to us, battles to achieve success in our careers, fighting for a better world, etc. All these types of battles are equally as worthy as the battles and raids which the Vikings fought, and are just as filled with their own forms of danger and peril. All forms of worthy battle which we fight are a way in which the gods/goddesses test us to see our measure of spiritual strength and bravery. By fighting whatever worthy battles we must in our lives without backing down and doing the best we can in them, we increase our spiritual might and personal luck. Most forms of modern battles are more so what can be considered forms of psychic or spiritual battles. Being a spiritual warrior is just as impressive to the gods/goddesses as being a literal one. If your life has been filled with strife and challenge lately during the late spring and early summer know that this is part of being in tune with the seasonal cycles and this time shall eventually pass. When fighting a lot of battles our energies can after awhile become drained and run down. Try to call upon the power of the sun, the goddess Sunna as a source to recharge your psychic and emotional batteries after many long fought battles.

I got into a really interesting conversation with Allen Alderman over in the Asatru and Heathen community in Google+. We discussed the Indo-European trinity. This is a really important metaphysical concept that seems to weave it’s way through all Indo-European based spiritual traditions, including Heathenism. I already covered one aspect of this concept in a previous post:

Allen Alderman: I read your post on the trinity in Heathenism. I would also enjoy discussing your views on Dumézil’s trifunctional hypothesis – which I, personally, think he just nabbed from much older thinkers – but I should probably save that for a comment on the post itself.

Volmarr Wyrd: *laughs*. Yes already had the discusion with someone who brought up Dumezil. I of course believe that most things end up dividing into 3 but the nature of what each part of that 3 is differs in each circumstance, it is rarely the same set of 3 things. Though I have not studied Dumezil, my understanding is he reduces all 3-fold divisions to the same one, but that is where I disagree with him. Three is metaphysically a natural division for most things in the universe, but there is not a fixed nature of everything being the same 3 things everywhere.

Allen Alderman: I was pointing more in the direction of the theory of guna in Samkhya philosophy. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? If you haven’t give it a good mulling over before discarding it prematurely (i.e. don’t just read Wikipedia’s treatment). There is a wealth of very old insight stored in that particular theory. You might find parts of it interesting, particularly in connection with what remains of Germanic lore.

Volmarr Wyrd: Yes the tattvas from Hinduism as you pointed out. In astrology they have this same concept with the cardinals, fixed, and mutable signs. In Hinduism there is Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. In Christianity there is Father, Son, and Holy-Spirit. It is the idea that all things have a creation, solidifying, and releasing aspect. In some ways many thrinities do fall into this division but it seems not all. But I agree with what you wrote elsewhere that studying other things, in particular Hindu stuff since it is an intact older Indo-European spiritual system gains one a much greater understanding of Heathenism. I studied Hinduism a lot as a matter of fact for many years.

Volmarr Wyrd: Also Theosophy, that last 19th century and early 20th century spiritual movement which is the foundation of the modern New Age movement gets into this trinity a lot in their writings.

Volmarr Wyrd: Those Theosophists were heavy into Hinduism. They mixed Hindu Jnana Yoga with with western Spiritualist tradition ideas to come up with the tradition basically.

Allen Alderman: You might already know this – I’m not sure – but the theory of guna reaches a lot deeper than the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva – which is a comparatively late development. The part of the theory which interests me most is their function in metaphysics and the theories which that idea later inspired in Hindu practical disciplines – especially medicine. But, essentially, it has to do with the Harmonic, Dynamic and Static principles in nature. I’ve always considered it a nice way to explain the relationship between the Vanir, the Aesir and the Jöttnar. That is to say, whenever someone contrasts the Vanir and the Aesir, there’s a voice in my head which says “You know, the Jöttnar actually belong to that particular trinity.” I usually bit my lip, however. :)

Volmarr Wyrd: I should look deeper into the gunas! Got any books to recommend? So which of the three races of divine beings do you relate to each of these principles?

Allen Alderman: Good books are always hard to find. My introduction to Samkhya philosophy was Nandalal Sinha’s Samkhya Philosophy (1915). Short but generally accurate treatments can be found in the shorter introductions, like M. Hiriyanna’s Essentials of Indian Philosophy (1948). A slightly more materialistic presentation, but valuable nonetheless, can be found in S. Dasgupta’s History of Indian Philosophy (1922). (The latter work, which can be found online at archive.org, is quite good at giving a broad but detailed overview of Hindu philosophy, Vol. I particularly, despite its typically late 19th century, “ancient philosophy can be harmonized with modern science” approach. It’s helpful to view Samkhya in its context, as that allows the reader to smooth over the personal preconceptions of the author.) Other than that, it has taken me years of reading in a variety of sources to recognize how all-pervasive this theory was and continues to be in weird and wonderful ways – several of which you mentioned in your comments above.

As for your second question: Well, it’s actually slightly more complex. None of the gunas are found in their pure state in anything manifest. Everything has all three in varying proportion. Thus, all three races are Dynamic, for example, but in varying degrees. For me, the Vanir are, by and large, the prime embodiments of the Harmonic principle, the Aesir embody the Dynamic principle, and the Jöttnar embody the Static principle. “Static” can be a bit misleading, as the original tamas (literally “darkness”) actually refers to a kind of “drawing down” or “drawing away” of energy, a destructive, sometimes lethargic tendency.

Just so you know, I’m not an “archetypal” Heathen, either. I consider myself as close to “hard” polytheism as a rational person can get.

Also, it might help to compare what you read on the gunaswith their analogy in Vedic medicine, the three doshas: vata, pitta and kapha. These were directly inspired by the theory of guna, and if you are versed in alchemical tradition, you might find that interesting, as well.

Volmarr Wyrd: Nice! My guess for the 3 races of spiritual beings was the same you mentioned. So static in that sense is like the primordial dark womb of creation? Kabbalah has these three as well. The pillar of mercy is dynamic. The pillar of severity is static. The middle is harmonic. Also we can see this in the creation story. Fire is dynamic. Ice is static. Where they meet in the middle and life is created is harmonic.

Allen Alderman: Exactly. Glad to have found someone on the same wavelength. ;)

Volmarr Wyrd: Indeed is nice! Yimir was very static and sort of taking up a lot of space in the middle of existence and thus is why Odin and his brothers needed to kill him. The material from that which is static is that which is needed to make stuff, thus his body became the Earth. Ever since there is an ongoing cold-war between the dynamic and static forces. The only ones somewhat outside of that tension is the harmonic forces. Notice how in the story of Ragnarok Njord withdraws his forces from the battle before it really begins. By the way the Kabbalah is 3×3+1. That 1 is the result of energies moving through all of the 3×3 in order from most abstract to most formed. I am also as well very much a hard polytheist. I strive to get to know the gods and goddesses of the Vanir and Aesir on as personal of terms as I can, with my biggest focus tending towards the Vanir.

The gods and goddesses live in a state of consciousness that is outside of our concept of time. Our own consciousness can move between the everyday conventional Midgard Earth human state of consciousness and a more divine god/goddess level state of consciousness. Trance states are states in which our consciousness level moves up into a more spiritual state of awareness. The further we move up in the trance state the more our awareness moves further out of the limits of time/space during the duration of the trance state. Since we have physical bodies through we eventually have to ground and return to a conventional time/space bound consciousness. When we return to regular consciousness we can sometimes take back some measure of the experience we had while in a trance state, though our thinking once more is limited by our concept of time/space while in a regular state of consciousness. While in a trance our thinking processes can move very far out of time/space concepts. There is different levels of trance state. In theory it is possible to trance all the way to a state of unity with all of existence and some people do experience such trances in moments. When we do divination such as runic readings or oracular seidr we are moving our consciousness outside of the constraints of time/space through some measure of trance, as much so as our skills allow us to.﻿

Also it seems that it is popular (in old times) to raise the dead to gain knowledge from them since the dead have no living body and thus the consciousness of the dead exists outside of the bounds of time/space. Thus the dead have access to a greater level of knowledge than us living do.

For those interested in learning some very interesting theories about the hidden aspects of the Vanir I recommend the book Sea Sky Soil. This book is based on the Vanir Theory. It basically deconstructs the theoretical hidden Vanir deities on an archetypal level using the theories expressed by the Vanir theory. This book is like looking at the bones of what makes up northern European Paganism, but outside the level of particular names or traditions. It’s spiritual dissection of the essence of things.

From my own personal work with the Vanir the ideas expressed in this book totally make sense and are important for understanding about the greater whole of the Vanir which the lore does not describe. In the least it does offer up potential avenues to pursue in pathworking attempts at contacting these other hidden Vanir.

Waincraft is a tradition the authors of the book and others have made based on these archetypes they have derived from their work. I see Waincraft as more of a loose theoretical framework that is useful for people practicing Heathenism or Norse-Paganism. People could if they wanted practice Waincraft on it’s own as a religious tradition, but by itself it is very barebones and abstract in nature, very dispersonal. It’s true value comes out when used as a way to gain a deeper understanding of northern European Heathenism/Paganism (that has more of a Vanic like slant to it).

The section of the book that talks about spirit animals from a Northern European slant is amazing and perhaps the best writing anyone has made in making them clear to understand and have a deeper sense of meaning. When comparing the ideas there to the common Native American based concepts of the various spirit animals I can see some similar aspects for some animals but some totally different aspects for other animals. Of course it has animals listed with are not common or important for Native American traditions but are of importance for Heathenism or Norse-Paganism.

For anyone following any shamanic oriented northern European Heathen or Pagan practices this book would be totally invaluable since it provides a complete and detailed and I feel very accurate cosmology. There is no practices here though, it is merely like a catalog of concepts, but a very well done one.

Anyone that is looking to more deeply understand the nature of northern Heathenism or Paganism should get this book. It is ideas which are brilliant and totally ahead of their time. To make use of this book you need to be practicing some path of Northern European Paganism/Heathenism or be someone that prefer something that is very abstract, but the concepts here will vastly enhance your understanding of any northern form of Paganism/Heathenism you may be following.

The Vanir Theory, this is something I very strongly believe in. I am someone that as a Heathen has a primary focus towards the Vanir, and I too have experienced from my own personal spiritual experiences that what this article is saying is accurate, and extremely important for understanding the Vanir.: http://waincraft.org/world-view/the-vanir-theory/

Most people nowadays, when they thinking about what Asatru is, (for this post I am using the word Asatru to mean that side of Heathenism that focuses on the Aesir and their values as distinct from the more broad aspects of Heathenism that encompasses both the Aesir and Vanir and other beings) they think in terms what is considered the values that are represented by Odin, more the stereotypical Viking warrior related values. But this approach to what Asatru and the Aesir represent, the Odinic one, is really only one of two differing forms of Asatru, or the ways of the Aesir.

In truth in the Viking age Thor was the most popular god, not Odin. Thor was more popular with farmers and common people. Odin was more popular with the wealthy and those who held power. Only a very small percentage of the Norse were actually Vikings, most were farmers that mostly lived peaceful lives.

What we in modern times have more knowledge of is the perspective of more of the Odin followers since more of them were the Vikings and thus the ones that more so lived heroic lives that were more interesting to craft stories about. The wealthy had the money to get poets to immortalize their exploits. Talking about milking cows certainly does not make for interesting poetry or the type of stories people tend to remember.

The most famous Norse temple was the temple in Uppsala. Accounts of this temple say that it had statues of three gods, Odin, Thor, and Freyr. Really the values of Heathenism can be divided into three to reflect each of these three deities. There are two very different sides of the Aesir, and the third side to Heathenism is the distinct ways of the Vanir (1, 2, 3 – disclaimer: I don’t agree with everything those last two links state).

The ways of Odin revolve around power and the quest to hold onto power. Odin is a god who quests after knowledge, but his seeking of knowledge has an agenda; that agenda is to increase his ability to hold onto power and authority. Those that tended to follow him in the Viking age were those who held power and thus they too held similar values to Odin. Odin is a god that enjoys stirring up strife and war for the sake of it. Though his reasons for doing this are not madness or some mean streak, he does this for the purpose of trying to hold onto power. Odin receives half of all warriors fallen in battle and thus the more war and strife, the more warriors he gains. He collects these warriors in an attempt to hold onto as much power as possible for to continue his order of things after the time of Ragnarok. The warriors he collects shall fight for him at Ragnarok. Because Odin is a collector of warriors, Odin often is known for arranging to even have his own followers killed in battle so that he may more quickly gather them to him. This is something all followers of Odin must be careful about since Odin operates with an agenda that tends not to take into consideration most people’s wish to not die young or soon. It is Odin’s wife, Frigga, that tends to be the only one that can talk some sense into Odin in regard to this; it is smart for any who have Odin as their personal patron to also have Frigga as their patron if they value the idea of having a long life at all. As you can see, Odin is a god of power and authority who tends to take extremes to achieve his goals. Odin as a warrior is more the professional military side of things, the type of warrior that lives for the sake of doing battle and enjoying the adventure of conquest and even seeks to continue to live this same way in the afterlife. Vikings as raiders and military adventure seekers are this exact sort of warrior. Odin is also a god of death and the need to accept the inevitability of eventual death. Killing is often the most powerful way to hold onto and gain power. Odin values the concept that you shall eventually die, so why not die doing something important like fighting in battle.

Thor is the god of the every-man. He is friendly and outgoing and has a big appetite to enjoy food, drink, and parties. He tends to love to travel and go on adventures, not for the sake of planned military conquest like Odin, but just to enjoy all the various things the Nine Worlds have to offer. He is clever when he needs to be, but not in a pretentious or showy way. Thor is basically very down to Earth, extremely so for a god and he tends to just accept others at face value and not judge anyone until or unless those beings prove by their actions they have hostile intentions. At that time, Thor very suddenly and without feeling the need to be constrained by any red-tape, takes action to defend against and destroy the transgressors. Thor is a powerful and intensely strong warrior, but more in the sense of a militia solider. Militia tend to be everyday citizens with common jobs in society that when the need is there for military defense, answer the call to arms. Most the time Thor is in peace mode, except when his warrior role is needed to do away with beings that threaten the peace and prosperity of the gods and humans. Thor’s normal day to day occupation is that of farmer. His sacred weapon, the Thor’s Hammer, is also a peace time magickal tool used to bless and used to plow the soil so the might and strength of Thor’s abundant vitality can bless the fields. His wife is considered a goddess related to the grain. Thor is a protector and called upon for this purpose. He tends to be a god that is liked by all. Thor’s Hammer has the power to heal and to restore things to a state of wholeness, and to bestow blessings. He is a defender of the rights of all beings that are living in peace and harmony with the cycles of nature to maintain their peaceful lifestyle. Thor only shows malice toward those who threaten the natural order of things. At the end of winter, he helps to stave off the forces of cold so that the spring may come. In some places Thor is associated with thunder and lightning, lightning being an agent needed to make some of the chemicals needed for early forms of life to form. The rains that come with lighting are needed for the crops to grow. As all this shows the values that Thor represents are life, the enjoyment of life, living life to the fullest, healing life, blessing life, and the defense and protection of life. Thor’s great strength comes from his strong life energies. Thor is the son of the Earth goddess, and the Earth is the very cradle of life.

That Odin and Thor would hold very differing values is just obvious considering one is a god of death and the other a god of life. We must be careful not to look at this in a black and white sense, as that is very contrary to Heathen values. Without death you can have no life. Without life you can have no death, and thus no spiritual growth. Through the cycle of birth and then eventual death and again birth once more in a new form, all of life grows and evolves and improves itself. Without death, life would stagnate and not grow in awareness and spiritual evolution would not be possible. Heathenism is a form of Paganism and Paganism sees the sacredness of the constant cycles within nature of life and death every single year. It is interesting that Thor is the son of Odin; life is born from death. This conflict of differing values between Odin and Thor is seen in the Hárbarðsljóð (1, 2, 3), in which Odin in disguise makes fun of Thor.

The third set of values contained in Heathenism is that of the Vanir. Their values, as we saw by the statues of the gods at the temple of Uppsala are represented by Freyr. It has already been mentioned about the yearly cycle of the seasons, how this is a needed force for everything to grow and evolve. Without the seasons, nature could not exist. All life needs a time to wither and withdraw and to pull inward, the winter time. When it is time, life moves outward again and we enjoy the summer aspect of life. Winter is a time to plan, learn, study, ponder, attend to small details, increase psychic and spiritual strength. Summer is a time to do, act, fight any needed battles, increase wealth and resources, connect with new people, exchange ideas, conduct trade, explore, increase physical strength. That which one connects to with the inner mind is all that is connected to that murky realm of death. While living we connect to the realm of the spiritual through the inner mind, through our awareness of death. That which one connects to outwardly through ones senses is all that which is connected to life. A healthy person finds a balance of both inner and outer; honors both life and death in equal measure. When someone becomes too fixed on only the spiritual they become unhealthy. When someone becomes too fixed on only life they become unhealthy. The Vanic way, and that which Freyr and all the Vanic deities hold as values is the honor of the proper balance of both life and death. This is done in Heathenism in the most outward sense in the honoring of the yearly cycle and in the practicing of the seasonal rituals. The Vanir love sex. Sex the single most powerful act any beings can do to unite these two forces of both life and death together as one. It is through sex that it is possible to pull a being from the world of death into the world of the living; something that is a true miracle of nature. Harvest time is the time when plants that have been grown for food must be struck down, harvested. Through this harvest we humans receive the food abundance we need to continue to live. This in itself shows how life is dependent upon death and how life and death support each other as one whole. Freyr is god of the harvest and abundance. Freyr is also god of sexual potency as his cock is always hard and ready for sex. The Vanic deities are deities that live within this middle ground between life and death. They are both life and death at once, but in the proper seasonal cycle. Freyr is god of frith. Frith means peace and harmony and abundance and the joys that abundance bring to a community. Frith can only happen when people honor and respect the Earth and the cycles of the seasons. When there is a lack of resources this is when war and strife happen. A lack of food and resources happen when people live out of harmony with nature and the natural cycles. A lack of material resources happen when people live out of harmony for the need for a balance between a material and spiritual focus. To be healthy, a society and its people need a spiritual life that holds deep respect for nature. When people embrace either atheism or types of religion that encourage people to conquer the Earth then people start to hoard resources and destroy the resources we all should be freely sharing with each other. When people live in harmony with nature and embrace their spiritual nature there is plenty of resources for everyone and then it is natural for there to be peace and harmony, frith. The Vanic way is the way of living in harmony with the cycles and honoring both the forces of life and death at their proper moments. The Vanic way is about spirituality being focused both on giving thanks for what nature and the gods/goddesses give us, and on the journey of personal spiritual growth, since spiritual growth is a natural part of the cycle of birth and death. Death is that which is hidden. Life is that which is seen. The Vanir as a group of beings have both sides to them. There is the Vanir we know of from the lore, Freyja, Freyr, Njord, and a few others. Then there is also the Vanir which are hidden. The lore does not tell us the names of these hidden Vanir, but they are there too and they are as much a part of the Vanir as the known ones. Not only is there the gods and goddesses of the Vanir, but Freyr is king of the Alfar and so we could also consider many of elves to be part of the Vanir as well.

I make this post as an offering to Saga, goddess of expressed and shared knowledge.

Need:
• drinking horn
• mead (or beer or wine or even can use juice)
• spring water in small bowl
• fresh pine twig
• offering bowl
• candles
• wand (if you don’t have one you can use your fingers instead)
• Thor’s Ritual Hammer (optional, can use it for the Hammer Hallowings)
• red candle
• white candle
• any symbols of spring
• any symbols of witches and magick
• a representation of Freyja

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This ritual, as are all Heathen or northern rituals, is done while facing north, except where otherwise noted. The altar should be such that it is in front of you when you face north.

If you don’t know how to pronounce the runes see my webpage on how to pronounce them here.

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Put spring water in small bowl. Trace 3 Laguz runes over it.:

“LAGUZ… LAGUZ… LAGUZ”

“From the Well of Wyrd does this water flow, and to the Well of Wyrd does it return”

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Make Hammer Sign at item and then splash each ritual item with blessed water using the pine twig and for each item say:

“I bless this ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

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Now trace Hammer Sign at person being blessed and/or self and splash them with water using twig.

“I bless ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

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Use twig to splash ritual space with water.

“I bless this space with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

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Few silent deep breaths.

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All stand in Elhaz position.

“Bi-Frost’s rainbow light shine down upon this space and myself so that I may form a portal between the worlds of Asgard and Midgard”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All face north and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the north hallow and ward this stead”

All turn east and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the east hallow and ward this stead”

All turn south and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the south hallow and ward this stead”

All turn west trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the west hallow and ward this stead”

All return to north and look up and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer above hallow and ward this stead”

All look below and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer below hallow and ward this stead”

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Return to facing north and all stand in the Elhaz position and chant:

“Around me and within me Asgard and Midgard”

and move into the Dagaz position in the end.

–

Few silent deep breaths.

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(Highly recommended optional casting of the rune ring)

(face north and trace the rune shape in the air before you using your wand and loudly chant: “FEHU!”)

“Hail also the unnamed disir of the Vanir, goddesses ancient and powerful. Please be here at this ritual of spring-time transformation.”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

“The Norse divide the seasons into two, winter and summer. Now is a shifting of energies, the unstable energies of change. It isn’t winter anymore now, but it isn’t yet summer. This is a border state time, a time between a time.”

“This time of year is traditionally associated with witches since witches, and wizards too, are people that live with a focus on those border states, as their focus is effecting change and transformation. ”

“Seidh is a form of magick related to Norse witchcraft. Seidh and many forms of magick are done by going into a trance state. Trance means altered state of conscious. People are often in trance state when in any border state, time between sleep and waking, meditation, magick rituals, intense pain states, near death state, etc. ”

“Battle trance is a state in which one struggles with life or death through physical combat. During battle is a powerful time to do spells due to this. Fight or flight is an altered state of consciousness. Spiritual rituals too are a border event. Also physical workouts too can be border states.

“Sex is a border state. Sex is one possible tool to use to do seidh and other forms of magick. Being sexually aroused is a border state. Freyja is always sexually aroused, thus she is a goddess always in the border state. ”

“Border state is fire. This is why Freyja is associated with fire. Fire is the energy of change. Conventional consciousness state for mortal humans is ice. Ice is the energy that keeps things as they are. Life force energy is fire though, because living beings can and do constantly change their environment.”

“Gods and goddesses have more life force than mortal humans, thus they have more magick. Deities can cause more, bigger amounts of change. By becoming attuned and one with the natural cycle of the seasons we increase our own life-force and fire and become more powerful. When we do devotional rituals to gods and goddesses we slowly move our own energies closer to the divine and become progressively more than just human. This is how we add divinity to our soul. By becoming more divine like this we increase our abilities to effect magick and create positive change for ourselves and others. ”

“The more we become divine the higher our personal consciousness frequency is and the more we are able to access a greater amount of knowledge, wisdom, awareness, and the stronger access we have to life force. This also causes our spiritual luck to improve. Rising one’s consciousness frequency is the key to making spiritual progress. By rising our consciousness frequency then we can become closer to the gods and goddesses as we are then like one of them.”

“Negativity, limited thinking, negative energy, bad energies, unhealthy food, unhealthy habits such as smoking, being around negative people and lack of faith in the gods/goddesses, all serve to drag down our energies and pull us away from the spiritual. Drinking in a way in which we don’t have any self control over is very destructive and pulls down our energies. Drinking alcohol is not bad, it actually is a strong part of the Heathen path, what is bad is drinking to an extreme and not being a responsible drinker. These things suck the spiritual life force out of us and reduce our fire. It is very important on the spiritual path to learn how to shield your energies against negativity and limit any interactions with negative people. ”

“The greatest tool for keeping energies consistently at a more positive spiritual level is regular daily spiritual practices. Enlightenment is not something that happens once and then you are cured for the rest of your life, it is an ongoing quest, even after achieving some measure of spiritual success all that has been gained can be lost if efforts are not kept up to keep things going. Magick is a tool to use to transform the self so that you can stay more often in a higher enlightened consciousness state that is closer to the level of the gods and goddesses. By maintaining a higher state of consciousness and a greater level of awareness and personal power we attract the interest of the gods and goddesses. By building a devotional practice towards a patron deity, matched by working on yourself using magick for self transformation directed towards a greater and greater spiritual self awareness, we move ourselves closer to achieving final rest from incarnation in the physical world, and moving on to reside in the hall of our patron deity at the time of our death. Working on the self to the point that we are ready to join our patron after we cross over from this world of the living to the next world is the main point for any more advanced level Heathen.”

“Now is the time during these changing energies to look for opportunities to bring positive changes in our lives, a powerful time to effect improvements in our lives. Now with the increase in physical activity in the rhythm of nature, is a excellent time to focus on getting into better physical shape by doing a regular fitness routine, if we don’t already do so. It is a good time to look at ways we can work on improving our health, both mentally and physically. This time of year is a good time to consider getting books about helpful methods of self improvement. It is a good time to brush up on any spiritual or occult knowledge areas we may already possess and perhaps looking too at ways we can expand such areas of knowledge. All these things which involve self improvement are connected with transformation and is oriented towards the type of energies of witches and wizards and of this general time of year. We are moving away from the inward focused energies of winter to the outward flowing energies of summer. The energies are shifting outward now towards vitality and renewal. ”

“At this time of year the sexual energies of nature are at their strongest point. Now is the time to enjoy any opportunities that are presented to express those sexual currents with others. Sex is a good way of celebrating the current natural cycle. It is a way to make offerings of joy and pleasure to the spirits of nature. Sexual expression is a way to honor all goddesses associated with this time of year, both hidden and known.”

“The Vanir are the Norse deities associated with the border time energies of the seasons, both with the spring when nature’s vitality increases, and in the fall when that which has grown is harvested. Vanic deities are strongly connected with the sexual currents of nature. Spring is the season for the goddesses and fall the season to enjoy the blessings of the Vanic gods. Spring is female, and fall male. Spring and fall are not seasons proper for the Norse, but times of transition between winter and summer. Freyja as goddess of sexuality and witchcraft is a goddess of the spring whose energies reflect this time of year. There are also hidden goddesses of the Vanir who help to bring forth the energies of this time of year of the cycle and we must honor them too. ”

–

(If there is any magick spells you wish to do for the purpose to better yourself in some way, now is a powerful time to do them. You may either do them at this point in the ritual or in a later ritual. )

–

(Light red candle)

(Fill drinking horn with mead and hold filled hold up)

“Freyja please present to me opportunities to take part in the increased sexual energies of this current time of year. Also please oh lovely goddess show me any ways that I may improve myself and help me with opportunities to do so. Please oh pretty goddess help me to flow with the changing energies of this time of year. You who are helpful seidh-witch and lover to all, help me to bend the life currents to my advantage. Thank you radiant Freyja. ”

(Drink some of the mead and pour out rest to offering bowl for Freyja)

–

(Light white candle)

(Fill drinking horn with mead and hold it up)

“Hidden spring-time goddesses of the Vanir may your energies be strong so that this season may be a wonderful one filled with positive vitality for all lifeforms. I thank you oh lovely hidden goddesses for all you do for us who take part in the seasons. Hail all hidden life-force goddesses of the Vanir! ”

(Drink some of the mead and pour out the rest into offering bowl for the hidden spring-time goddesses of the Vanir.)

–

Use the pine twig to splash a bit of the liquid in the offering bowl on yourself, on any others in the ritual with you, on your altar, on the ritual space, and in all general areas of your dwelling as well. Does not need to be much splashed around, just a little is fine. This helps to imbue more of the energies of the ritual on you, and others who may also in the ritual with you, and to your place.

–

“Now my rite has ended. May all gathered here fare well on their return to their home places. And may the bonds of frith between us grow, gods, wights, and humans alike. Until we meet again.”

–
–

Pour out the offerings from the offering bowl outside:

“A gift for a gift”

Trace gebo at spot offerings were given to.

“GEBO!”

Pour out remaining blessed water outside.

“I pour the sacred water back to the Earth so it may find it’s way back to the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now at this point it is very important to ground your energies. This should always be done after every ritual. Not doing so can lead to problems in the long-run. Grounding is like shifting gears in a car, except it is the process of shifting brain states. During rituals you create a trance like brain state, which is desired for during rituals or for during any spiritual practices. But trance states are not good for doing everyday mundane things. You need to return your mind back to the normal state of consciousness after the ritual is finished. That is what grounding is.

The most simple and common method to ground is to visualize yourself as a tree and see roots growing into the ground from the base of your spine and going down into the earth. Sometimes rituals require industrial strength grounding as they can really create some intense energy. In that case you can try the following triple grounding method.:

First visualize your chakras. You picture in your mind closing first the top one and then seeing a sort of lid closing over it, then proceed with the net lower chakra and so on. You want to leave the bottom most chakra, the root chakra fully open as this is your connection to grounding. Don’t be concerned about having the others closed, the normal proper function of them is that they open and close as needed. Problems with being ungrounded happen when one of more of them are stuck open. Only the bottom one is to be left open at all times.

Next step is to picture a ball of pure white light above your head. Now let this white light slowly descent downward into your body and slowly move lower. As it descends it takes with it any unneeded, old, and negative energies. It is sort of sweeping downward through your energies taking all you no longer need with it. Once it reaches your feet let it move lower till it passes down through the floor. If you are on an upper close let it pass all the way to the ground. Let the earth take this energy to recycle it.

Now final step is to do the traditional grounding. Picture yourself as a tree. Visualize roots coming out of the base of your spine and going down into the Earth. Feel the calmness of a tree, the rooted solidness.

If after these three things you still feel hyper or spaced out you can either eat some food, or put a small amount of salt on your tongue. Another thing you can do is prostrate down to the ground, placing your head on the ground and stay like this for a few moments.

–

Feel free to copy and use this ritual so long as you acknowledge the source.

Seidh (and many forms of) magick is done by going into a trance state. Trance means altered state of conscious. People are often in trance state when in any border state, time between sleep and waking, meditation, magick rituals, intense pain states, near death state, etc. Border state is the secret of the dagaz rune. Dagaz represents the power of transformation or the magick potential fringe or border states have.

Particular aspects of trance states like near death state trance or battle trance too is the eihwaz rune. Battle trance is a state in which one struggles with life or death through physical combat. During battle is a powerful time to do spells due to this. Fight or flight is an altered state of consciousness. Spiritual rituals too are a border event. Also physical workouts too can be border states.

Sex is a border state. Sex is one possible tool to use to do seidh magick (and magickally generally). Being sexually aroused is a border state also, and Freyja is always sexually aroused. Freyja is a goddess always in the border state.

Border state is fire. Fire is the energy of change. Normal consciousness state for mortal humans is ice. Ice is the energy that keeps things as they are. Life force energy is fire though, because living beings can and do constantly change their environment.

Gods/goddesses have more of that life force than mortal humans, thus they have more magick, they can cause more bigger amounts of change. By becoming attuned and one with the natural cycle of the seasons we increase our own life-force and fire and become too more powerful.

Odin’s wod is an extreme form of altered state. Wod is like a combination of inspired, insane, crazed, and intensely focused. It is basically the embodiment of altered states of consciousness. Odin is always in a state of Wod as that is his energies. it’s also why Odin tends to go to extremes and not always consider the normal everyday life impact of things. He can be over harsh on his devotees (sometimes bringing them to an early violent death) for this reason, without any intended malicious towards them. He is sort of stuck in an intense altered state of consciousness. It’s probably why he only eats mead or wine and not food. But he is a god of magick. Is also why he often times talks only in poetry. What any artist experiences when they make art is wod. Berserkers are warriors in an intense state of wod. Warriors devoted to Odin often enter an intense wod trance state when in battle. Odin’s warriors when in that state have only one urge; to kill, and injury does not slow then down so long as their body is still able to function, as they are in such a deep trance that they don’t feel pain, and are unconcerned about their own self preservation.

When we do devotional rituals to gods and goddesses we slowly move our own energies closer and closer to the divine and become slowly more than just human, adding divinity to our souls this way.

The more we become divine the higher our personal consciousness vibration frequency is and the more we are able to access a greater amount of knowledge, wisdom, awareness, and the greater access we have to the life force and the more spiritual luck we tend to have also. Rising ones consciousness frequency is the key to making spiritual progress. By rising out consciousness frequency then we can become closer to the gods/goddesses as we are then more attuned to them.

Negativity, limited thinking, negative energy, bad energies, unhealthy food, unhealthy habits such as smoking or not having any self control over the amount of alcohol that you drink (drinking alcohol is not bad, it actually is a strong part of the Heathen path, what is bad is drinking to an extreme and not being a responsible drinker), being around negative people and lack of faith in the gods/goddesses, all serve to drag down our energies and pull us away from. These things suck the spiritual life force out of us and reduce our fire. It is very a very important part of the spiritual path to learn how to shield your energies against negativity and limit your interactions with negative people.

The greatest tool in keeping energies consistently at a more positive spiritual level is regular daily spiritual practices. Enlightenment is not something that happens once and then you are cured for the rest of your life, it is an ongoing quest and even after achieving some measure of spiritual success all that has been gained can be lost if efforts are not kept up to keep things going.

The gods/goddesses want people to join them in their halls whom have worked enough on their-selves to be able to exist in frith (peace harmony, working in cooperation with the standards of a place) in their halls, harmoniously with the others who live with them there. It is the ultimate goal of any Heathen to develop themselves enough spiritually to join the god or goddess whom they have devoted themselves to at the time of their death. But for this to happen the devotee must work on themselves spiritually to be worthy of such an honorable place, as well as strive daily to maintain a strong relationship with their deity, through acts of devotion such as making offerings and other daily ritual and devotional practices.

I think there is as many styles of types of relationships with gods/goddesses as there is people with relationships with them. Some may choose to put a label to their form of devotion and use a similar label to someone else, but in the end any relationship between a god/goddess is a personal thing between devotee and deity. The problem with labeling it is some then start to compare how they connect with the deity with how they are or one may feel a desire to judge others ways of connecting with their deity, this is seriously bad as it removes the point from the relationship, which is one that is about connecting with the deity. It should be that each person listens to their heart or their deity for to know what is the way to connect with them. Labels can interfere with listening to the heart, or even with listening to the deity.

The only judgements that should be made about any relationship with a deity should be, is this making me a better person, is this making me more happy and more filled with a sense of connection to the spiritual and is it giving me added spiritual strength to deal with the challenges of my physical life.

When we have a relationship to any deity we should put the connection to them first and leave aside labels that may get in the way. We must listen carefully to what the deity may be telling us that the relationship is, and not feel in a hurry to interject our own labels. A god or goddess we have a connection with will tell us what they wish from us in our relationship with them given enough time. Simple labels like devotee may be better since this is more broad. In the Viking times they would call them something like “the special friend of (deity)”.

Never in any way should we use any label that is more about pumping up our own ego than about honoring what the deity truly wants the relationship to be. From my experience also the deity does not give us all information right away, but it takes time for our own level of understanding to increase before we can understand more and that the deity feels we are ready to know more. Mostly they like us to figure stuff out and then talk to them about it.

In the end what matters the most is the personal connection you have with your god/goddess, not what labels you tell others defines this. Also never judge someone elses personal connection with their god/goddess, this is a very sacred and personal thing and in no way can you understand what depth this connection may have and all that might go on in this relationship. Ultimately this is what all followers of the Norse gods/goddesses should strive for, finding the god or goddess which is their special friend and then building this relationship with them so that the devotee can one day directly serve their god/goddess in the afterlife once they move from the world of the living.

Need:
• drinking horn
• mead (or beer or wine or even can use juice)
• spring water in small bowl
• fresh pine twig
• offering bowl
• candles
• wand (if you don’t have one you can use your fingers instead)
• Thor’s Ritual Hammer (optional, can use it for the Hammer Hallowings)
• Any representation of Odin
• Any representation of ancestors
• Any representation of any one is now dead that you admire, in particular those you admire for their wisdom.
• Halloween type decorations and anything related to death and the dead
• Any symbols for wisdom or knowledge
• Any symbols for the after-life

–

This ritual, as are all Heathen or northern rituals, is done while facing north, except where otherwise noted. The altar should be such that it is in front of you when you face north.

If you don’t know how to pronounce the runes see my webpage on how to pronounce them here.

–

Put spring water in small bowl. Trace 3 Laguz runes over it.:

“LAGUZ… LAGUZ… LAGUZ”

“From the Well of Wyrd does this water flow, and to the Well of Wyrd does it return”

–

Make Hammer Sign at item and then splash each ritual item with blessed water using the pine twig and for each item say:

“I bless this ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now trace Hammer Sign at person being blessed and/or self and splash them with water using twig.

“I bless ______ with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Use twig to splash ritual space with water.

“I bless this space with the waters of the Well of Wyrd”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All stand in Elhaz position.

“Bi-Frost’s rainbow light shine down upon this space and myself so that I may form a portal between the worlds of Asgard and Midgard”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

All face north and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the north hallow and ward this stead”

All turn east and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the east hallow and ward this stead”

All turn south and trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the south hallow and ward this stead”

All turn west trace the Hammer Sign while chanting:

“Hammer in the west hallow and ward this stead”

All return to north and look up and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer above hallow and ward this stead”

All look below and trace Hammer sign while chanting:

“Hammer below hallow and ward this stead”

–

Return to facing north and all stand in the Elhaz position and chant:

“Around me and within me Asgard and Midgard”

and move into the Dagaz position in the end.

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

(Highly recommended optional casting of the rune ring)

(face north and trace the rune shape in the air before you using your wand and loudly chant: “FEHU!”)

“Hail to my ancestors, both known and unknown. Those of my line going all the way back to the beginning, on up to most recent of times. Both men and women, alfar and disir, whom previously had a human form. Those whom I know, as well as those I do not. Those also whom are the ancestors of all humans living now. All humans that have made the journey of life before my time, and now reside in the realm beyond the living. Hail to the ancestors of all! Hail also to the ancestors of my family line! Hail to the ones that guide me. Hail also to the ones that protect me.”

–

Few silent deep breaths.

–

“Now is a time in which the rhythms of life turn inward, towards contemplation and trying to understand the deeper mysteries of life and towards the gathering of and seeking out of knowledge. It is through the ancestors and those humans that have come before us that we have all the knowledge which we have in human society. Those who have gone before us are the ones that have created the traditions and knowledge which we as humans rely upon to meet all of our needs, such as how to grow and create food, how to build protective shelters for living in, how to make clothing so that our human bodies are protected from the elements, how to survive the seasonal cycles in all different areas of the planet, what dangers to avoid and how to avoid them, and how to keep our human society functioning and going. We humans are the only animal that can not survive without knowledge. Our very lives depends on knowledge of how to do so many things. Over hundreds of thousands of years humans have increased their knowledge to the point that we live with the current advantages which we have now.”

“It is due to the experience and wisdom of our ancestors, both those within our own family line, and the ancestors of all human beings, that we can live as well as we do in the modern times. Those that have gone before us have recorded their wisdom for us in language, in stories, in poetry, in tools, in fashion, in objects of art, in oral knowledge, in traditions, in music and song, in mathematics, in schools of learning, in books, in the recording of historical events, in objects from the past, in plays, in movies, in TV shows, in videos, in blue-prints, in engineering plans, in computer programs, and even in the bones of the dead. All these things are the sum total of human heritage and the source of our knowledge that allows us to survive and thrive as a species. By turning to the past and studying the wisdom of our ancestors we tap into that knowledge. We must honor the dead and those who have gone before us for all that they have given to us. As well it is important that knowledge is passed to others freely, for otherwise the work of so many becomes lost. It has taken us so long to get to the point we are at now as a species, it is important we not be greedy with our knowledge or hoard it away from others, for this impedes human survival and progress.”

“Odin as god of wisdom is often traveling to the the realm of the dead to seek out the wisdom of the dead. We too must be like Odin and seek out the knowledge of our ancestors, the wisdom of the dead. At this time the focus of the seasons turns more towards this task of looking inward and to the past. Now is the time to look at all which you have done this season and look at what has worked for you and what has not. It is a time to ponder all lessons that are to be gained from what has been done this year, so that you may know better for next season how to increase the abundance of your life harvest. It may be a good time to record some notes regarding this, safely putting them away some place where they shall not be lost. Also this is a time when the veils between the realm of the living and the dead are at their thinnest, and thus a time in which the knowledge of the dead is more accessible. It is a good time to seek out the wise counsel of the ancestors and those that are now passed beyond the realm of the living. This is a good time to spend time reading books, and studying new things, and pursuing the gaining of knowledge in any form.”

“At this time ponder on what you have learned this year.”

Few silent deep breaths while pondering on this.
“Now consider what things you would like to do differently the next cycle”

Few silent deep breaths while pondering on this.

“Now think about those who have have passed into the after life. Now is the time to think about anyone you may know who has died”

Few silent deep breaths while you think about those who have passed on.

“Now think about any wisdom or knowledge they may have for you.”

Few silent deep breaths while you think about this.

“Now is the time to give thanks for all that our ancestors have given to us and to honor the wisdom of the dead.”

(Fill drinking horn with mead and hold it up)

“Hail to all humans that have come before me. Hail to those of my family line, as well as all people of the past of all human family lines. I make this offering to you in thanks for the wisdom you have given us by the lives you have lived in the past. May your knowledge continue and enhance the life of both myself and all other humans alive now and all humans to come for all of eternity! Hail to the ancestors of all people!”

(Drink half the mead and pour out the rest as an offering to the ancestors of all humans.)

“Now is the time to honor Odin, the god of knowledge. Odin tirelessly seeks out the knowledge which all humans have worked to create for all of time. He is the god that seeks to gain and preserve knowledge and give it to others for the benefit of human society and human progress. He is the god who labors tirelessly to establish things in such a way that humans can continue and survive even after the end of this current cycle when Ragnarok comes and all begins again anew. He is the god that has discovered the runes through a difficult process of spiritual initiation so that they may be of benefit for gods and humans alike. He is the god that has made so many sacrifices for the sake of gaining of knowledge. We owe him much for all these things!”

(Fill drinking horn and hold it up)

“Hail Odin, god of the runes. God of knowledge and wisdom. You Odin are the one that frequently travels the worlds seeking to know more. Please guide me Odin in learning more and in applying knowledge in ways that are helpful to me. Please Odin help me to gain a deeper level of connection with all people of the past so that my knowledge my increase. Hail Odin!”

(Drink half the mead and pour out the rest to Odin.)

–

Use the pine twig to splash a bit of the liquid in the offering bowl on yourself, on any others in the ritual with you, on your altar, on the ritual space, and in all general areas of your dwelling as well. Does not need to be much splashed around, just a little is fine. This helps to imbue more of the energies of the ritual on you, and others who may also in the ritual with you, and to your place.

–

“Now my rite has ended. May all gathered here fare well on their return to their home places. And may the bonds of frith between us grow, gods, wights, and humans alike. Until we meet again.”

–
–

Pour out the offerings from the offering bowl outside:

“A gift for a gift”

Trace gebo at spot offerings were given to.

“GEBO!”

Pour out remaining blessed water outside.

“I pour the sacred water back to the Earth so it may find it’s way back to the Well of Wyrd”

–

Now at this point it is very important to ground your energies. This should always be done after every ritual. Not doing so can lead to problems in the long-run. Grounding is like shifting gears in a car, except it is the process of shifting brain states. During rituals you create a trance like brain state, which is desired for during rituals or for during any spiritual practices. But trance states are not good for doing everyday mundane things. You need to return your mind back to the normal state of consciousness after the ritual is finished. That is what grounding is.

The most simple and common method to ground is to visualize yourself as a tree and see roots growing into the ground from the base of your spine and going down into the earth. Sometimes rituals require industrial strength grounding as they can really create some intense energy. In that case you can try the following triple grounding method.:

First visualize your chakras. You picture in your mind closing first the top one and then seeing a sort of lid closing over it, then proceed with the net lower chakra and so on. You want to leave the bottom most chakra, the root chakra fully open as this is your connection to grounding. Don’t be concerned about having the others closed, the normal proper function of them is that they open and close as needed. Problems with being ungrounded happen when one of more of them are stuck open. Only the bottom one is to be left open at all times.

Next step is to picture a ball of pure white light above your head. Now let this white light slowly descent downward into your body and slowly move lower. As it descends it takes with it any unneeded, old, and negative energies. It is sort of sweeping downward through your energies taking all you no longer need with it. Once it reaches your feet let it move lower till it passes down through the floor. If you are on an upper close let it pass all the way to the ground. Let the earth take this energy to recycle it.

Now final step is to do the traditional grounding. Picture yourself as a tree. Visualize roots coming out of the base of your spine and going down into the Earth. Feel the calmness of a tree, the rooted solidness.

If after these three things you still feel hyper or spaced out you can either eat some food, or put a small amount of salt on your tongue. Another thing you can do is prostrate down to the ground, placing your head on the ground and stay like this for a few moments.

–

Feel free to copy and use this ritual so long as you acknowledge the source.

Meta

Blogroll

A Heathen's Path
– His getting started entries are very good heart felt information about practicing Heathenism. Very nice easy down to earth approach to the practice. Recommended.

Amarina's Journey
– An interesting journal about a mystical Norse spiritual journey. Recommended. Contains adult content. Is connected to Freyja’s path. She also made my rune graphics I use on my blog and websites.

Essential Asatru
– This is the best book to get for anyone new to Heathenism. It gives a very well researched, accurate, fair and balanced perspective on things. Highly recommended.

Futhark
– This is the first book to start with for learning the runes and the magickal systems related to them. First before starting to study the runes though gain a complete knowledge of the gods and goddesses and Norse cosmology and understand wyrd.

Ingeborg's Norse Heathen Pages
– This is a mirror site of my friend Ingeborg’s old webpage on Heathenism. It has not been updated in a long time. She was the one who taught me Heathenism way back in time. She is extremely knowledgable on the subject.

Nine Worlds Travel Guide
– Fancinating modern lore on the nine worlds derived from present day shaman’s traveling there. It has lots of details and includes places, things, and beings of all the various worlds and places. Very recommended.

Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner
– Once you are already practicing Heathenism and know it fairly well, this is a must read book. It is all about making your practice more spiritually focused. Ignore the Loki and giant stuff in it.

Our Troth Book 1
– Very in depth well research, HUGE, two set of books. Once you get past the beginner stage you should tackle reading these. Between the both of them they are close to 1000 pages, so not for the beginner anyways.

Our Troth Book 2
– This is the second book of Our Troth. Just as massively filled with information as the first one.